''Mālia'' is a Hawaiian-style wooden racing

canoe A canoe is a lightweight, narrow watercraft, water vessel, typically pointed at both ends and open on top, propelled by one or more seated or kneeling paddlers facing the direction of travel and using paddles. In British English, the term ' ...

crafted by James Takeo Yamasaki. The canoe was hewn out of blonde koa wood in

Kailua-Kona, Hawaii Kailua-Kona is an Unincorporated area#United States, unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Hawaii County, Hawaii, Hawaii County, Hawaii, United States. It is most commonly referred to simply as Kona (a name it shares wit ...

, in 1933. Its wooden hull provided the founding model for all subsequent outrigger canoeing hulls, including those later molded from

fiberglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) is a common type of fibre-reinforced plastic, fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened i ...

. Hawaiian racing canoeist Tommy Holmes observed that ''Malia'' "remains a prototype for contemporary racing canoes ndwas among the first canoes built exclusively for the sport." The canoe was listed on the State and

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in 1993.

Background

Outrigger canoe racing became popular in Hawaii during the early 1900s. Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalaniana'ole was an early aficionado and commissioned the first canoe specifically built for racing, the ''Aa'' in 1902. Despite weighing 620 lbs., it won many races. Lighter and more streamlined canoes continued to evolve in the following decades as common

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canoe designs were adapted for racing purposes.

Design

''Mālia'', a ~40-ft., 400-lb. canoe designed by James Takeo Yamasaki, was the culmination of a design evolution in wooden racing canoes, and it established the model for outrigger racing canoes made of newer, lighter materials. The original Hawaiian name ''Mālie'' refers to the relatively calm waters of the Kona Coast on the

leeward In geography and seamanship, windward () and leeward () are directions relative to the wind. Windward is ''upwind'' from the point of reference, i.e., towards the direction from which the wind is coming; leeward is ''downwind'' from the point o ...

side of the Big Island, the site where the canoe was made. The Outrigger Canoe Club bought the original ''Mālia'' in 1940, and the Waikiki Surf Club acquired it in 1948, keeping it in use until 1988. From 1950-1951, the design of ''Malia'' was modified by Froiseth, Downing, and Choy.Holmes 1993, p.128 In 1959, the original ''Mālia'' won the first outrigger canoe race to Catalina Island in

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. After the race, the ''Malia'' had a significant impact on the historical development of the racing canoe. According to Tommy Holmes:

An interesting sidelight of the first Catalina-to-Newport race in 1959 was the alleged pirating of a fiberglass plug of the ''Malia''. This shell, reportedly taken without authorization while the ''Malia'' awaited shipment back to Hawaii, was later made into a mold. From this mold, and the hulls that came from it, other molds were made. The majority of the fiberglass canoes in use in Hawaii and California today have been made from these molds. Thus the ''Malia'' inadvertently sired a noble fleet of fiberglass-and-resin-canoes.

In 1960, a California-made fiberglass model of the ''Mālia'' competed in the annual paddling race across the Molokai Channel (the Molokai Hoe) to

Oahu Oahu (, , sometimes written Oahu) is the third-largest and most populated island of the Hawaiian Islands and of the U.S. state of Hawaii. The state capital, Honolulu, is on Oahu's southeast coast. The island of Oahu and the uninhabited Northwe ...

, leading to a separate division for ''Malia''-style fiberglass canoes in 1960–78. By 1981, models of the ''Mālia'' had begun spreading to

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, and to the shores of the

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, and

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across the

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Usage and importance

The term ''Malia canoe'' now refers to a class of Hawaiian-style outrigger canoes that follow the design of the original ''Mālia'', even when made of fiberglass. Every serious outrigger canoe club, however, aims to acquire at least one ''Mālia'' made of koa wood and other traditional materials.

Background

Design

Usage and importance

References

Further reading